


Even You Are Gonna Need Someone

by fabrega



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Blackwatch Era, M/M, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-14
Updated: 2016-12-14
Packaged: 2018-09-08 11:05:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8842273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fabrega/pseuds/fabrega
Summary: Gabe doesn't get sick. This is what he tells himself when he comes back in from a three-week mission with a scratchy throat and a sluggish feeling in his bones; there's nothing to worry about, because he doesn't get sick.(Turns out, this is a lie.)





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [smarshtastic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/smarshtastic/gifts).



Gabe doesn't get sick. This is what he tells himself when he comes back in from a three-week mission with a scratchy throat and a sluggish feeling in his bones; there's nothing to worry about, because he doesn't get sick. Even so, he drinks two glasses of orange juice in the canteen and goes to bed an hour earlier than normal, just in case.

He wakes up feeling like garbage. Every part of him aches, his stomach is churning, and he feels a little like he is burning up and freezing to death all at the same time. His alarm is going off, and when he checks the time, he realizes that it has been going off for almost two hours. On the bedside table, his tablet is flashing with multiple unread messages. He was supposed to have a debrief on the three-week mission this morning, then weapons training with his strike team.

He manages to get his alarm turned off and pick up his tablet without leaving the bed, which feels like about as much as he's going to be able to accomplish today. There's one message from the woman he was supposed to debrief with asking where the hell he is, and the rest of his messages are in the strike team group chat. He'd been added a few months back and usually mostly ignored it, its contents about half scheduling and planning (of the mission or possibly prank variety) and half pictures of cats that Prithi, McCree, and Shiga keep sending to everybody else.

 **E. VALDEZ:** Reyes, you okay?  
**P. JAYACHANDRAN:** it's not like you to miss training  
**J. MCCREE:** [picture of a cat that looks sad]  
**P. JAYACHANDRAN:** Bennett says you weren't feeling well on the flight back from Gibraltar  
**P. JAYACHANDRAN:** you still feeling under the weather?  
**F. SHIGA:** [picture of a cat in a lab coat with a stethoscope]  
**M. EDWARDS:** C'mon guys, let him rest  
**J. MCCREE:** if you need somebody to call down to the infirmary for you, let us know  
**J. MCCREE:** I've got an in with Doc Ziegler if we need it  
**F. SHIGA:** oooOOOOOooooh, an in with Doc Z???  
**J. MCCREE:** shut up  
**J. MCCREE:** it's not like that  
**J. MCCREE:** [picture of a cat with its paws over its face]  
**M. EDWARDS:** GUYS

Gabe sets the tablet flat on his chest. He doesn't want to involve the doctor if he doesn't have to--his physiology is weird (since SEP) and he doesn't particularly like doctors (since SEP). He also doesn't really want to leave his bed if he doesn't have to, and moving sounds like an awful lot of work.

(Something flickers in his stomach when he thinks about McCree having "an in" with the pretty, blonde doctor, but he is very firmly going to write it off as the sickness.)

 **G. REYES:** I'm fine  
**G. REYES:** Don't need a doctor  
**G. REYES:** Don't like doctors  
**G. REYES:** Let me die here alone in peace  
**P. JAYACHANDRAN:** that...doesn't sound fine  
**E. VALDEZ:** Are you actually dying, or are you one of those guys who whines and moans as soon as you develop a cough?

The chat quickly devolves into an argument about being "actually" sick and "those guys" and whether the fact that Edwards apparently moaned for four days about a hangnail makes him one. (Consensus is leaning towards yes.) Gabe sighs.

 **G. REYES:** I am actually sick  
**G. REYES:** You'd think this super soldier shit would mean I wouldn't GET sick  
**G. REYES:** But no, all it means is that when I do get sick it's weird  
**G. REYES:** I am going to sleep some more and see if I feel better  
**G. REYES:** And aren't you assholes supposed to be on the practice range right now?  
**P. JAYACHANDRAN:** we are!

There is a lull in the messages, and Gabe takes the opportunity to close his eyes, just for a moment. He's hopeful, in this moment, that maybe his team is done being ridiculous and he can sleep, but then the tablet buzzes again. There's a new message from McCree in the group chat, a photo down a row of lanes on the practice range, each of his agents sticking their head out of their respective lane and smiling at the camera. Prithi is waving, and Shiga is going to need another talking to about trigger discipline when Gabe is better, unless he's fully prepared to shoot holes in the range's ceiling.

 **M. EDWARDS:** Couldn't get yourself in the photo, Jesse?  
**J. MCCREE:** I tried, my arms aren't long enough  
**J. MCCREE:** my head was always giant in the front of frame  
**F. SHIGA:** even without the hat?  
**J. MCCREE:** especially without the hat  
**E. VALDEZ:** for Christmas, Jesse is getting a selfie stick

The tablet buzzes with a new message, direct from McCree. Gabe switches to that thread, wondering what it could be. He is pretty sure they've messaged each other maybe three times over the past year? Always about Blackwatch business, never more than a sentence or two at a time. It's always been very professional, because at some point after rescuing the little shit from a life of crime and having him become a valued member of the Blackwatch Commander's personal strike team, Gabe had realized that he had an almost distressingly intense crush on McCree. It shouldn't be a thing at all, because McCree dresses like a goddamn cowboy and delivers painfully dopey one-liners from old Westerns mid-mission, but the heart wants what it wants, and Gabe's heart is apparently an idiot. When he'd realized this, he'd gone out of his way to keep their interactions measured and professional, trying to take the edge off it before he did something really stupid.

He opens the message. It's a furtive selfie of McCree, obviously taken in the practice range. He's smiling--a furtive smile, small, one that feels like it was meant only for Gabe--and he's looking directly at the camera. If Gabe was braver, he'd call the look _tender_. If he was better, he'd delete the photo right away. Instead, he sets the tablet down on his chest and smiles up at the ceiling.

Even that aches.

The group chat buzzes again.

 **F. SHIGA:** I'm sure he'll believe you're here even without photographic evidence  
**M. EDWARDS:** Let the poor man rest  
**P. JAYACHANDRAN:** check back in with us later, ok?  
**P. JAYACHANDRAN:** if we haven't heard from you in the next twelve hours, we'll send a rescue party  
**G. REYES:** Thanks  
**J. MCCREE:** feel better!

.

He wakes up to someone knocking on his door. He checks the clock, and it hasn't been twelve hours yet, so at least he knows it's not an entire fucking Blackwatch strike team come to bodily drag him to the infirmary.

He ought to answer the door, but all he wants to do is burrow down deeper into his covers and try to get warm. He grabs for his tablet and pulls up the door surveillance that came with the slightly nicer quarters he gets as part of the Overwatch old guard.

McCree is standing in the hallway with Ana Amari's daughter, Fareeha. McCree is holding something in his hands, a bowl maybe? Fareeha looks fidgety.

"He ought to be in there," McCree says.

"He wasn't in the infirmary," Fareeha agrees. She looks back and forth down the hallway. "Are you sure this is a good idea? Agent Edwards said--"

McCree's face darkens, and he says, "Agent Edwards can eat an entire bag of dicks."

Fareeha doubles over laughing.

"Shit! Shoot! I mean, _shoot_ \--" McCree attempts to backpedal.

Through her laughter, Fareeha manages to ask, "Isn't the bad thing you wish on somebody supposed to be something that you _don't_ \--"

" _Jesus_ , Fareeha!" McCree cuts her off. "Oh my god, your mother is right, I am a terrible influence on you. I'm so sorry."

Fareeha just grins.

Gabe has probably seen enough, and he thumbs on the room's intercom. "What do you want?" he asks the hallway, a petulant tone in his voice. "I'm sick."

"Oh, good, boss, you're there."

"Yes, I haven't left my room, because I'm sick. You probably shouldn't be here--" (he pauses, more for dramatic effect than anything else) "--because I'm sick."

"We brought you some soup!" McCree lifts the thing he's holding, and Gabe is finally able to recognize it as a large ceramic bowl with a lid on it. "It's an old Amari family recipe, I guess."

"I helped!" Fareeha chimes in.

There's a pause, while Gabe tries to figure out if he's actually feeling up to company.

"Can we come in? The soup's getting cold."

Well. Maybe they can come in for soup. Soup sounds good. Sounds _warm_.

He opens the door. Getting out of bed still sounds hard, so he waits for them to make it through the front room back into the bedroom to find him.

One of them knocks gently on the door frame. "We brought soup," Fareeha says. Gabe rolls to see her standing in the doorway, her head just inside the room. McCree is standing behind her and looking a little uncomfortable.

"I get you sick," Gabe tells Fareeha, "Your mom's gonna kill me."

"I'll keep my distance." She smiles and nudges McCree into the room. "I leave for basic training later this week, so the last thing I want is to get sick."

"Only one who'll be mad at you if you get _me_ sick is my CO," McCree says with an easy grin, slightly resisting Fareeha's nudges.

"Heard that guy's a hard-ass," Gabe mumbles, attempting to get himself propped up in the bed. He's shivering. "Wouldn't want to get on his bad side."

"Yeah, I heard that too," McCree says. He makes his way into the room and takes a seat gingerly on the edge of Gabe's bed. "But I have a feeling you might be able to reason with him on this one."

Gabe takes the soup from McCree and concentrates on eating it and staying vertical and _not_ how close McCree is sitting. McCree and Fareeha chat about something hopefully inconsequential while Gabe half-listens, and he makes it about halfway through the bowl of soup before his eyes start to drift closed. The conversation stops, and the bowl is gently taken from his hands.

"I should go. Do you have this under control?" Fareeha asks, and when Gabe nods, eyes mostly closed, she laughs. "I didn't mean _you_ , Gabriel."

"We'll be fine," McCree says. Gabe's got his eyes fully closed now, so he hears McCree get up and set the soup on the bedside table. The door opens and closes as Fareeha leaves. 

McCree clears his throat. "Is there anything else I can get you? Some water, or another blanket?"

Gabe nods. The shivering hasn't subsided, and he lays back down, rolling himself up into the sheets and blankets to form what he hopes will become a burrito of warmth. He hears the bathroom faucet run and the clink of a glass being set on the bedside table.

"I probably should have asked if you had more blankets before I offered you another blanket," McCree says.

"Closet, maybe?" Gabe says. 

He hears McCree start rifling through the closet. "This uniform has a _lot_ of medals on it."

"War hero," Gabe grits out through chattering teeth. "If we ever got to wear our uniforms, they might matter."

There's a frown in McCree's voice as he says, "Of course they _matter_. They're a hell of a lot more than I'm ever--oh, there's the blanket." There's a noise like McCree is climbing down from something, and then careful hands are tucking an extra blanket around him.

Gabe opens his eyes to see McCree leaning over him, a fond look on his face, and he is probably imagining things but it looks like McCree blushes. He withdraws quickly, but Gabe grabs at his arm.

"Stay?" he says.

McCree's eyes widen, and Gabe drops his arm. "I--it's not an _order_ , McCree, if you have things to do, you should go, on second thought, you should probably go anyway, I'm sure--"

At the same time, McCree is saying, "No, of course, of _course_ I'll stay, I need to do something with the soup though, let me go give Captain Amari her bowl back and grab my tablet, I want to stay, no, I _want_ \--"

Gabe stops. He is exhausted, and for once is willing to give in on this. "You're sure?"

McCree doesn't look sure, but he says, "Absolutely. _Somebody_ ought to take care of you." He smiles, and Gabe feels his chest tighten.

.

Gabe dozes. He manages to stay awake long enough to see McCree leave and then let him back in, but after that, he is in and out of sleep despite his best efforts.

He wakes, and the room is quiet. His stomach lurches, and he staggers to the bathroom. McCree, seated at Gabe's desk, looks startled.

He wakes, and he hears McCree talking in a low voice to someone. "No, he asked me to--it seems like a fever, but I don't--I know, I know, that super-soldier shit--well, you're welcome to come down here but _I_ ain't letting you in--hello? Hello?" There's a pause, then McCree grunts in frustration. "Well, fuck you too, Doc."

He wakes, and the room is quiet.

He wakes, and his teeth won't stop chattering.

He wakes, and there is a hand on his hair and a voice in his ear saying _hey, it's okay_.

He wakes and McCree's body is curled around his own. They are both under a tall pile of blankets, at least one of which Gabe doesn't recognize. McCree seems to be asleep; this feels so much like a dream that Gabe is afraid to move, lest he break the spell. He finally, _finally_ feels warm.

He wakes, and the room is quiet. Gabe feels human again, the ache in his bones dissipated, overheated under the blankets and sticky with sweat. The SEP shit in his blood must have finally gotten its act together.

A glance at the window shows that it's dark outside. McCree is still in the bed, fast asleep; he's managed to crawl out from under the pile of blankets and is lying, face-down, on the edge of the bed. One of his arms is dangling over the side, his hair is sticking up at an odd angle, and his mouth is slightly open against the pillow. He's snoring gently. It shouldn't be attractive at all, but he looks so peaceful and Gabe finds he can't tear his gaze away.

Gabe's trying to be careful, but he must shift a little too much, because McCree blinks awake. He rolls onto his back--so he's not falling off the bed anymore, Gabe tells himself, and _not_ so that he is pressed up against Gabe--and smiles at Gabe sleepily. "G'morning, sunshine."

Gabe feels his cheeks go warm. (God damn it, he is an _adult_ and this is some fucking _teenaged bullshit_ , what the _hell_.)

McCree suddenly seems to realize where he is, and he scrambles backwards to the edge of the bed. From a safe distance, he coughs awkwardly and then asks, "You feeling any better? Seemed like it was touch and go there for a little bit."

"Yes. I--Yes. Thanks."

McCree grabs his hat from the bedside table and flees.

.

Gabe gets up, showers and brushes his teeth, gets dressed and goes to the canteen and eats a giant serving of the blandest thing he can find. He checks his messages as he spoons the oatmeal into his mouth; there's an annoyed email from Angela Ziegler that he is going to choose to ignore (he hears McCree's voice echo _fuck you too, Doc_ ), an email giving him a new debriefing time for tomorrow, and the strike team chat has been busy. Somebody--and he refuses to scroll back enough to find out who--seems to have decided that pictures of fat cats are the way to make their commander feel better, so as far back as he is willing to scroll, it's all incredibly fat cats.

 **G. REYES:** I'm feeling better  
**G. REYES:** You can stop posting cats now

The reaction from the chat is, as expected, a mix of _we're glad you're feeling better_ and _omg, the cats worked_ and _I hope you managed to turn off notifications while you slept, we're really sorry_. None of the responses are from McCree.

Back in his room, Gabe sorts through the pile of blankets. Most of them are his, and he folds them and puts them back at the end of the bed or in the closet, but the two from the top of the pile are unfamiliar. They must be McCree's; he might as well go give them back.

He'd noticed that the base seemed quiet, but it's not until he's knocking on the door of McCree's quarters with his arms full of blankets that he thinks to check the time: nearly 2300h, which explains the grumbling he hears from inside.

"What the hell do you--oh, Commander Reyes." McCree is standing in the open door shirtless and wearing Blackwatch sweatpants that slouch low around his waist. Gabe's fascinated by the way his blush seems to go out to the tips of his ears and all the way down into his chest. 

He absolutely did not think this through, and he thrusts the blankets at McCree and turns on his heel to leave.

Behind him, McCree swears and calls after him, "Commander, wait."

Gabe turns back.

"I know I crossed a line today, but I ain't sorry." He's staring Gabe down and holding the blankets Gabe gave him between them like a shield. "And if you think I should be, you walk away now and dole out whatever punishment you think is right. I won't hold it against you. I deserve it. But--"

"I asked you to stay. It's my mistake, not yours, McCree." Gabe sighs.

"Excuse me?" McCree's hands ball into fists in the blanket he's holding, and he takes a step forward, into Gabe's space. Gabe takes a step back. "How the hell is my idiot crush on my commanding officer your fault?"

"I'm sorry, _what_? _Your_ crush on _me_? Why on earth would you have a crush on me?"

"Really, your handsome ass needs me to explain--wait." Gabe watches as McCree parses what Gabe had said and how he'd said it. McCree's face lights up. _Fuck._

Gabe shoves McCree back into his quarters, the shove firmly in the middle of the blanket McCree is holding; if they're going to have this conversation, it's sure as hell not going to happen in the hallway. He doesn't like the way McCree is grinning at him. (Well, he _does_ , but that's not the point right now.)

The door closes, and Gabe tries to put a reasonable amount of distance between them. McCree sets the blankets down on his bed before turning back to Gabe and saying slyly, "So if it wasn't _my_ crush on _you_ that you were worried about, what was it?"

"You're a smart kid, I think you've figured it out." Gabe does his best to glower at McCree, but the effect is almost certainly lessened by the way his eyes keep drifting down to McCree's chest.

"Think I might have," McCree says. "So here's how I see it: I've been pining after you. You've been pining after me. The whole reason Blackwatch exists is to break the rules and do what needs to be done, so--"

"If the end of that sentence involves the concept of you 'needing doing', McCree, I swear to christ I will walk right out of here."

McCree shuts his mouth abruptly. The room is quiet for several long moments, then he says, "Still ain't sorry. I call it like I see it."

"You've always had a good eye," Gabe murmurs. He looks away, then back to McCree. "Thing is, Blackwatch breaks the rules in secret. If anything was going to happen--" (McCree positively _beams_ ) "--and I'm not saying it will--nobody else could know."

"I can keep a secret!"

"You wouldn't be part of a covert ops organization if you couldn't, I really can't stress that enough." Gabe sighs. "But you--you deserve not to have to hide, McCree. You shouldn't have to be or keep a secret."

"Neither should you!"

"I mean it. I'm serious."

McCree laughs. "It's awful sweet of you think so, Commander--"

" _Jesse_." 

McCree's attention snaps to him, and then he shakes his head for a moment, looking almost disoriented. "Hey now, that's not playing fair."

"Who said Blackwatch played fair?"

"Not sure that's a fight you want to start, _Gabe_ ," McCree says, and his name sounds so different when McCree says it that he barely notices that McCree has crossed the distance he'd put between them. McCree grabs the front of Gabe's hoodie, yanks him close, and kisses him hard. Before Gabe has time to react, McCree steps back and smirks. He's within reach, but the sudden space between their bodies feels like an eternity. "I grew up fighting dirty. You're not gonna beat me that way."

"Never said I wanted to beat you." Gabe reaches out and rests his hands on McCree's hips, and McCree goes still. "This is what you want?"

McCree nods, and Gabe pulls him close and kisses him. It's what he wants too, McCree's lips against his when it doesn't feel like a dare, McCree's hands clenched into his hoodie to pull him even closer, the way McCree moans quietly against his mouth when Gabe threads his fingers into McCree's hair.

Suddenly, a wave of tiredness washes over Gabe, and he pulls back almost involuntarily to hide a yawn. For someone who slept all day, he's surprisingly tired; must be a side effect of the SEP shit in his blood working overtime.

"Didn't mean to bore you, darlin'," McCree says. Gabe raises an eyebrow, but McCree just grins at him.

"I've been _sick_."

"And yet you put your mouth all over my mouth, like some kind of inconsiderate monster."

Gabe smiles at McCree fondly. "You started it."

"That I did. You should probably go sleep," McCree says, his words incongruous with the way he leans back into Gabe's space. "Or... you could stay?"

Gabe gives him a surprised look.

"We don't have to _do_ anything," McCree says quickly. "We'd actually sleep. I just...sleeping with you today was nice. I know that it's complicated, with all that secret shit, but..."

As bad an idea as Gabe knows that is, he agrees--sleeping in the same bed as McCree, waking up with McCree, it was nice. As bad an idea as it is, he wants to do more of it. 

Gabe looks around Jesse's quarters, at Jesse's twin bed. It's standard issue for recruits, narrow, with rumpled sheets. He hasn't slept two to a twin bed since basic training, and he is absolutely not going to start again now. He says, firmly, "No."

McCree's face falls.

"But," Gabe offers carefully, "If you wanted to come back to mine?"

.

McCree agrees to leave five minutes after Gabe does, the first step in this secrecy thing that they've both agreed to. It takes Gabe a moment to realize he's pacing as he waits, and he channels his feelings into straightening the things McCree left out of place when he was here earlier in the day. (Nothing is particularly out of place, but his time in the army has instilled a deep and abiding sense of spartan tidiness in him, and it is easy to pretend that straightening the chair McCree pulled out from against the wall is a better use of this nervous energy than pacing had been.)

McCree shows up exactly five minutes later, wearing the clothes that he obviously intends to wear tomorrow, the sweatpants he'd had on earlier tucked under his arm. He removes tomorrow's clothes methodically, folding each piece as he removes it. 

Watching him peel off his uniform shouldn't feel as revelatory as it does. It's not even something Gabe's never seen before, because the whole team changes in front of each other all the time, but this time it's _for him_ , and the way McCree keeps glancing over at him and smiling the same small, furtive smile from the photo earlier threatens to undo Gabe.

He takes off his own shirt while McCree finishes folding, and they both climb into Gabe's much more appropriately-sized bed. McCree settles on the far side of the bed, leaving a surprising amount of space between them, before Gabe sighs.

"C'mere," he says, reaching across the bed, and McCree wriggles closer, into his arms. There's a brief moment or two of negotiating where all of their limbs go, and then they are curled together, close enough that Gabe can feel the way McCree's heart is pounding and McCree can probably feel his. He feels McCree press a kiss to his neck, and he smiles into McCree's hair.

They stay this way until Gabe drifts off to sleep.

.

(McCree wakes up sick the next morning, but he assures Gabe it's absolutely worth it.

"Although," McCree says with a weak smile, "I'm pretty sure my CO's gonna kill you."

"Please, I've met that guy." Gabe kisses McCree's too-warm forehead. "He's not so tough.")

**Author's Note:**

> If you'd like, come yell about these idiots with me on [tumblr](https://etriva.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/carithlee)!


End file.
